1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reservation management apparatus and a method for arranging duplicate reservations for the same time in an information processing system for managing a plurality of reservations.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional reservation management systems, if the duplicate reservations for the same time are made, a person who knows the respective importance of the duplicate reservations determines an order of precedence, in most cases. There are other well-known methods such as the one disclosed in TOKKAISHO:63-262754, for determining an order of precedence according to a priority of simultaneously-entered reservations when the reservations are entered in the reservation management system, and the one disclosed in TOKKAIHEI:4-151766, for controlling an order of precedence according to a priority assigned to user IDs.
There are, however, the following problems in the conventional reservation management systems.
The method where the person who knows the respective importance of the duplicate reservations is based on the assumption that such a person actually exists. If such a person does not exist, it is impossible to make a correct determination of the priority.
In the method for assigning a priority to reservations when users make reservations (TOKKAISHO:63-262754), all persons who perform reservation operations using the reservation management systems should have knowledge of the determination standards for assigning a priority to the reservations. This means the users of the systems are limited to persons who have knowledge of the determination standards. Since a person should determine the priority of the reservations when performing the reservation operations in this method, the reservation operations become complicated, and errors can occur as a result. If there is a reservation with an incorrect priority, the reservation management systems cannot properly perform priority control.
In the method for controlling the priority according to the priority assigned to the user IDs (TOKKAIHEI:4-151766), the priority of the reservations is assigned according to an ID of a person who makes a reservation, regardless of the contents of the reservation. Accordingly, the priority of the reservation of the user who has an ID with a low priority, is always determined as low, however important the reservation is. That is, priority control may sometimes be performed contrary to the actual degree of importance. Furthermore, only the users themselves should perform the reservation operations, other persons cannot perform the operations for them.